19th century Britain, a time of reshaping women in the ideology of “separate spheres”

Abstract

The main issue of this article is to analyse the 19th century Britain , a time of great progress and reform in British society due to industrialisation and social upheaval.But one of the most controversial debates were the “gender inequality “ in the then period. How in this era women were discriminated against by men. Throughout the 19th century a system existed which was entirely patriarchal. Britain was run by common law; a law which dictated that once a woman married, she ended up with no rights to anything. Patriarchal society did not allow women to have the same privileges as men. Consequently, women were ascribed the more feminine duties and pursuing the outlets of feminine creativity. The most ridiculous thing was that this era symbolised by the reign of a female monarch, Queen Victoria, still the women were subject to the voice of men . They were deprived of their own property, voting rights and even right over her own body. People believed in Tennyson’s words, “men for the field, women for the home “. So in a sense it can be rightly said that the age is the supreme example of the proverb “Darkness reigns at the foot of the light-house”.